And unfortunately, we also have a strong tradition of spying on people who don't do what the powers that be want them to do. A few years back news came out that that the FBI had a 70 page file on a former president of the University of California, simply because he wouldn't fire a couple of professors that certain people thought were too liberal.
Indeed. And you can find much stronger examples, in the student, civil rights, and religious groups that J. Edgar Hoover's FBI spied on, and further back to the efforts that Senators Joe McCarthy and Richard Nixon made to support spying upon suspected communists and the later President Richard Nixon's "enemies list" that helped direct Hoover's excesses.
There's nothing that bothers me more about neocons than their contempt for checks and balances on the executive and legislative branches. I miss the days in the 80s when neocons were commonly referred to as "cryptofascists." I'd like to see that term return.
The problem with the USA Patriot Act is that it has an unintended consequence: While working under the guise of gathering information on terrorists (a good thing) a great deal more information is gathered on innocent individuals (a bad thing).
Jim Pinkerton, a FOX News (bear with me, he's one of the ones who does more than repeat the RNC talking points) commentator, makes an excellent point against the Patriot Act that conservatives would be wise to attend.
When they read the Patriot Act, they imagine it being used against people that this administration deems as enemies. They are comfortable with this: they see it as to be used against terrorists, illegal immigrants and other potential dangers.
Pinkerton makes the point that they must now picture the same powers in the hand of an administration that they would not be some comfortable with: for example, in the hands of a liberal President, let's say for the sake of argument a President Hillary Clinton.
Most neocons should think long and hard about that kind of mix, and why the United States has the strong tradition of limiting the power of the executive and subjecting everything to the possibility of judicial review. They're not there to protect the terrorists, they're there to protect us against an administration with whom we do not agree.
Re:Don't let the TV execs get their hand in...
on
Star Wars TV Show
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· Score: 1
I find your lack of faith in the "no spin zone"... disturbing.
Don't let the TV execs get their hand in...
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Star Wars TV Show
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· Score: 5, Funny
It ain't vaporware until people actually receive shipments. I don't think anybody has yet.
Mine has been on order for about 14 months. They told me they'd ship mine in a couple of days, a couple of days ago - and when I told them that my address has changed, they said they'd ship in 5 to 10 days.
I'm not sure, I haven't been flying long enough - I have seen that a number of people do have STCs for autogas. Here is a reference that talks about some of the current wisdom on avgas vs. autogas issues.
This could end up being a problem for general aviation funding, since (I'm told) taxes on avgas help subsidize a lot of general aviation projects for smaller craft.
Framing the requirement in the vocabulary of the experiential learning that the school champions, Professor Skaggs said students would be required only to enter the voting booth
If the school has an open policy of being experimental, I think it buys them and the professors a lot of slack on stuff like this. Whether we think it's justified on its own merits or not, it's an experiment - students already signed up to be subjected to odd or unusual conditions. Let's give it a try and see what happens. Maybe it's just silly, maybe it'll have some subtle effect upon class participation. Who knows?
But seriously though, why not just go buy a plane or a helicopter?
Good question, and there is a good answer. Speaking as a pilot...
In a word: Parking. An airplane, you have to find space for at a local airport. It's expensive, and good luck finding sheltered hangar space in many areas. Plus, you get to worry about whether the general aviation airport will stay open. I have to move my airplane 50 miles now because the airport I've been using, 3FD1, is being sold by the owner - to be turned into strip malls. Yay, development.
I'd love to have an airplane that I could land and then drive home and keep in a real garage. Right now, I have to hope that my plane has weathered the hurricane here in Florida because there was no full hangar space available for shelter. I should really have flown it out of here, but I just got it back after 4 months and didn't feel safe flying in the dodgy weather.
Any VTOL capability would be nice so that I wouldn't have to go to the local airport in order to take off and land, but that wouldn't be as much of a win as simply being able to drive on standard roads and park in a standard garage.
Helicopters have a slightly different set of issues, but they're simply no good for long distance travel. If you want to fly a reasonable distance a helo is not an option.
There are some other issues, like most non-turbine airplanes requiring a more expensive, different grade of gasoline (avgas: "100LL") than cars do, but those are slowly changing - we're seeing more and more engines designed to take auto gas instead of 100LL.
The problem is this: You can point the hubble in any direction, and get an equally old image. Further, if you take a deep enough image, you can (theoretically) take an image of the Big Bang itself (or X million years after it, whatever).
Nope, we can only see back 14-15 Billion years. What's interesting is that our "horizon" is limited because the universe is expanding uniformly. IE, space is appearing between us and Alpha Centauri as much (per unit distance) as it is appearing between us and other galaxies.
What this means is that there's a point out there beyond which we will never see because its distance is increasing from us (not moving: that would violate relativity) at "faster" than the speed of light. This horizon is "shrinking," too - there are stars that were within our horizon in the past that no longer are, because there's more space between us now than there used to be.
That horizon is at 14-15 Billion years, where the Universe is thought to be about 156 Billion years wide.
Real is trying to shoehorn their own proprietary format into Apple's proprietary hardware. We're supposed to be surprised when proprietary games are played to prevent this?
The Real Network Music store won't work with the Macs, a pop-up window tells Mac users to get lost. So Real is only going after the iPods that are attached to Windows boxes... I have more sympathy for Apple fighting tooth and nail to protect their windows-oriented product, everybody there lives under the shadow of Microsoft and have to assume that any competitor they try to play nice with will be eaten by Microsoft and be used against them. Apple has to assume that if they allow Real compatability, it'll suddenly end up being Windows Media compatability.
What's New in iPhoto 4.0.2
iPhoto 4.0.2 addresses minor issues with Smart Albums and European books, and provides notification when new versions of iPhoto are available.
Why in the hell do we need applications to check for new versions? We have Software Update for that, and it does a fine job! Come on Apple, you're smarter than this!
You know, you could say all of the same sorts of things about DEC before their self-destruction.
Sun's toast. Somebody will eventually acquire their dried husk, but as an industry leader it's passed its prime and hasn't done anything revolutionary in years.
I find it interesting the way it was all handled, outside of stock trading hours.
I wonder if his doctor had a dark enough sense of humor to say something like,
"Well, we got your test results back. Your liver is fine, your heart is great, and your pulmonary health is excellent. Oh, and one more thing..."
This means that, when you transfer your MP3 files to the new Walkman, Sony's PC software must laboriously convert them first into ATRAC3 files. Sony claims it designed the player this way because ATRAC3 produces superior sound, [...]
Er, right. So this is a magic format that restores the information in the lost bits from the original mp3 conversion?
You've got to make sure that documents that require your "legal name" all precisely agree. A real PITA, but it'll cause problems.
I had to go to court and almost ended up fined or in jail because of a slight mismatch in my documentation. Because my insurance didn't match, some automatic notifcation system cause the state of Florida to think that I didn't have car insurance, so they canceled my driver's license without telling me. When I was pulled over on the highway, I was charged with the misdemeanor of driving without a license (the cop did not care about the reasons, he could only see that my license was revoked). I then had to have my girlfriend come pick me up, 6 hours' drive away from home, and I had to return later to answer the charges. The DA dropped the charges when I pulled her aside and explained what happened and showed her the documentation, but I still lost the day and a half that it took to drive to that jurisdiction and back for the 8am court date, and the driving of the day of the incident (6 hours there, 6 hours waiting for the girlfriend, 6 hours back).
The good news is that non-legal documents like credit cards don't have to agree as long as you're not trying to dodge creditors. The rule is that if you're using a name in a non-fraudulent manner and it doesn't require your legal name, it's all fine.
But really, really. Make sure "legal name" documents agree completely. The Bureacracy is not your friend, and you must appease it now or it will take its vengeance later.
anyone stupid enough to go for this crap isn't smart enough to know he has civil rights,
I had a lot of my nontechnical friends and family ask me about this when it first went around. They were concerned about the privacy issues. The money issue aside, your snide inside is really unfair, for two reasons:
A lot of smart people don't know anything about the underlying technology. They don't know that an email message is usually just a bunch of alphanumerics. On the other hand, that ignores attachments and other content that can be made active by the MUA. Which brings us to:
Don't you think that if Microsoft could make a serious buck off of it, they would implement something that allowed them to track certain bits of mail? Some bit of ActiveX that, when signed by Microsoft, would always be run by Microsoft MUAs?
Sure, the money hook is obviously absurd. But the technology end isn't as absurd now as is seemed in 1997. Back then, executing content that any stranger sent you was obviously something that any reasonable company would take steps to prevent. This is definitely a way in which Microsoft has "innovated."
I want to see more about a military training program that includes the Kobayashi Maru, where the candidate's character is tested in an unwinnable (cheating aside) situation. How do you nurture excellence in a standardized program? I want to see the debates that instructors would have with each other over a cadet like Kirk. I can see it now: "With or without us, either he'll be the greatest captain of our era or he'll bring the Federation down in flames. Let's try to ensure the former."
Someone should get David Gerrold to do a write-up. He did the original Star Trek: The Next Generation series bible as well as the old series episode, "The Trouble With Tribbles"
and the excellent B5 episode, "Believers" and is otherwise a well established, excellent SF writer. He'd have to be paid by Paramount, though, and I'd rather he finishes the Chtorr War series first.
I've been thinking about this since stumbling across it (and downloading it before submitting it to Slashdot).
What's really cool about this is that, as promised, the low price of quality digital video equipment and computer editing is really letting people chase their passions in this way, and the low cost distribution of the Internet is letting
That's really cool. All the snide comments about Trek creativity that some readers would undoubtable make aside, perhaps the promise of a creative renaissance in video fiction can actually be fulfilled. It doesn't matter if 99% is crap, a higher volume means more great stuff being created and it just becomes a matter of finding the great stuff.
Predicted that the stratospherically successful iBook would be a disaster,
Most recently, he predicted in March of 2003 that Apple would move the Mac to Intel in the next 12-18 months. Apple's got 3 months left to do it... what do you think the odds are?
The guy should change his name to "Anonymous Coward" for the amount of trolling he does. So now he's an Xbox "expert," eh?
Slashdot Mirror
There's nothing that bothers me more about neocons than their contempt for checks and balances on the executive and legislative branches. I miss the days in the 80s when neocons were commonly referred to as "cryptofascists." I'd like to see that term return.
When they read the Patriot Act, they imagine it being used against people that this administration deems as enemies. They are comfortable with this: they see it as to be used against terrorists, illegal immigrants and other potential dangers.
Pinkerton makes the point that they must now picture the same powers in the hand of an administration that they would not be some comfortable with: for example, in the hands of a liberal President, let's say for the sake of argument a President Hillary Clinton.
Most neocons should think long and hard about that kind of mix, and why the United States has the strong tradition of limiting the power of the executive and subjecting everything to the possibility of judicial review. They're not there to protect the terrorists, they're there to protect us against an administration with whom we do not agree.
I find your lack of faith in the "no spin zone" ... disturbing.
- CSI: Coruscant
- Law & Order: Imperial Sedition Unit
- Extreme Makeover: Padawan Edition
- The Darth Vader Factor
- Survivor: Dagobah
- Who Wants To Marry A Sith Lord?
- The Apprentice
Damn. Actually I think I'd enjoy some of those.It ain't vaporware until people actually receive shipments. I don't think anybody has yet.
Mine has been on order for about 14 months. They told me they'd ship mine in a couple of days, a couple of days ago - and when I told them that my address has changed, they said they'd ship in 5 to 10 days.
D'oh! Color me an idiot.
I'm not sure, I haven't been flying long enough - I have seen that a number of people do have STCs for autogas. Here is a reference that talks about some of the current wisdom on avgas vs. autogas issues.
That said, Honda/Teledyne are working on an engine designed for autogas. And then there's that German diesel engine that has just become available...
This could end up being a problem for general aviation funding, since (I'm told) taxes on avgas help subsidize a lot of general aviation projects for smaller craft.
In a word: Parking. An airplane, you have to find space for at a local airport. It's expensive, and good luck finding sheltered hangar space in many areas. Plus, you get to worry about whether the general aviation airport will stay open. I have to move my airplane 50 miles now because the airport I've been using, 3FD1, is being sold by the owner - to be turned into strip malls. Yay, development.
I'd love to have an airplane that I could land and then drive home and keep in a real garage. Right now, I have to hope that my plane has weathered the hurricane here in Florida because there was no full hangar space available for shelter. I should really have flown it out of here, but I just got it back after 4 months and didn't feel safe flying in the dodgy weather.
Any VTOL capability would be nice so that I wouldn't have to go to the local airport in order to take off and land, but that wouldn't be as much of a win as simply being able to drive on standard roads and park in a standard garage.
Helicopters have a slightly different set of issues, but they're simply no good for long distance travel. If you want to fly a reasonable distance a helo is not an option.
There are some other issues, like most non-turbine airplanes requiring a more expensive, different grade of gasoline (avgas: "100LL") than cars do, but those are slowly changing - we're seeing more and more engines designed to take auto gas instead of 100LL.
What this means is that there's a point out there beyond which we will never see because its distance is increasing from us (not moving: that would violate relativity) at "faster" than the speed of light. This horizon is "shrinking," too - there are stars that were within our horizon in the past that no longer are, because there's more space between us now than there used to be.
That horizon is at 14-15 Billion years, where the Universe is thought to be about 156 Billion years wide.
The clearest discussion I found of this on-line is here: http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/nova/universe/howbig.html
Yep, I bought it yesterday too, at Best Buy in Florida.
Will money get you through times of no games better than games will get you through times of no money?
- Real is trying to shoehorn their own proprietary format into Apple's proprietary hardware. We're supposed to be surprised when proprietary games are played to prevent this?
- The Real Network Music store won't work with the Macs, a pop-up window tells Mac users to get lost. So Real is only going after the iPods that are attached to Windows boxes... I have more sympathy for Apple fighting tooth and nail to protect their windows-oriented product, everybody there lives under the shadow of Microsoft and have to assume that any competitor they try to play nice with will be eaten by Microsoft and be used against them. Apple has to assume that if they allow Real compatability, it'll suddenly end up being Windows Media compatability.
So, no sympathy here.You know, you could say all of the same sorts of things about DEC before their self-destruction.
Sun's toast. Somebody will eventually acquire their dried husk, but as an industry leader it's passed its prime and hasn't done anything revolutionary in years.
I find it interesting the way it was all handled, outside of stock trading hours.
I wonder if his doctor had a dark enough sense of humor to say something like,
"Well, we got your test results back. Your liver is fine, your heart is great, and your pulmonary health is excellent.
Oh, and one more thing..."
Great to hear he'll be fine.
Er, right. So this is a magic format that restores the information in the lost bits from the original mp3 conversion?
And, Sony marketing says, it'll give you a pony.
You've got to make sure that documents that require your "legal name" all precisely agree. A real PITA, but it'll cause problems.
I had to go to court and almost ended up fined or in jail because of a slight mismatch in my documentation. Because my insurance didn't match, some automatic notifcation system cause the state of Florida to think that I didn't have car insurance, so they canceled my driver's license without telling me. When I was pulled over on the highway, I was charged with the misdemeanor of driving without a license (the cop did not care about the reasons, he could only see that my license was revoked). I then had to have my girlfriend come pick me up, 6 hours' drive away from home, and I had to return later to answer the charges. The DA dropped the charges when I pulled her aside and explained what happened and showed her the documentation, but I still lost the day and a half that it took to drive to that jurisdiction and back for the 8am court date, and the driving of the day of the incident (6 hours there, 6 hours waiting for the girlfriend, 6 hours back).
The good news is that non-legal documents like credit cards don't have to agree as long as you're not trying to dodge creditors. The rule is that if you're using a name in a non-fraudulent manner and it doesn't require your legal name, it's all fine.
But really, really. Make sure "legal name" documents agree completely. The Bureacracy is not your friend, and you must appease it now or it will take its vengeance later.
Yeesh, you spray and you trap but they keep on coming back.
...And how much does it cost to check your car on the airplane?
- A lot of smart people don't know anything about the underlying technology. They don't know that an email message is usually just a bunch of alphanumerics. On the other hand, that ignores attachments and other content that can be made active by the MUA. Which brings us to:
- Don't you think that if Microsoft could make a serious buck off of it, they would implement something that allowed them to track certain bits of mail? Some bit of ActiveX that, when signed by Microsoft, would always be run by Microsoft MUAs?
Sure, the money hook is obviously absurd. But the technology end isn't as absurd now as is seemed in 1997. Back then, executing content that any stranger sent you was obviously something that any reasonable company would take steps to prevent. This is definitely a way in which Microsoft has "innovated."Those are excellent points.
I want to see more about a military training program that includes the Kobayashi Maru, where the candidate's character is tested in an unwinnable (cheating aside) situation. How do you nurture excellence in a standardized program? I want to see the debates that instructors would have with each other over a cadet like Kirk. I can see it now: "With or without us, either he'll be the greatest captain of our era or he'll bring the Federation down in flames. Let's try to ensure the former."
Someone should get David Gerrold to do a write-up. He did the original Star Trek: The Next Generation series bible as well as the old series episode, "The Trouble With Tribbles" and the excellent B5 episode, "Believers" and is otherwise a well established, excellent SF writer. He'd have to be paid by Paramount, though, and I'd rather he finishes the Chtorr War series first.
I've been thinking about this since stumbling across it (and downloading it before submitting it to Slashdot).
What's really cool about this is that, as promised, the low price of quality digital video equipment and computer editing is really letting people chase their passions in this way, and the low cost distribution of the Internet is letting
That's really cool. All the snide comments about Trek creativity that some readers would undoubtable make aside, perhaps the promise of a creative renaissance in video fiction can actually be fulfilled. It doesn't matter if 99% is crap, a higher volume means more great stuff being created and it just becomes a matter of finding the great stuff.
May a thousand flowers bloom. Times a thousand.
You should take a look at the GBA versions of Splinter Cell and Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow.
Think franchise instead of port.
As a self-proclaimed Apple expert, he:
- Predicted the death of Apple for years and years,
- Predicted that the stratospherically successful iBook would be a disaster,
- Most recently, he predicted in March of 2003 that Apple would move the Mac to Intel in the next 12-18 months. Apple's got 3 months left to do it... what do you think the odds are?
The guy should change his name to "Anonymous Coward" for the amount of trolling he does. So now he's an Xbox "expert," eh?Dvorak?